The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users by expanding the capabilities of mobile electronic devices. One area in which there is a demand to increase ease of information transfer relates to the sharing of information between multiple devices and potentially between multiple users. In this regard, given the ability for modern electronic devices to create and modify content, and also to distribute or share content, it is not uncommon for users of such devices to become prolific users and producers of media content. Networks and services have been developed to enable users to move created content to various points within the networks.
To complement mechanisms for distribution and sharing of personal content, mechanisms have also been developed to provide for distribution of commercial content. In order to prevent unauthorized use or copying of commercial content, there has been an increased need for content protection sometimes in the form of digital rights management (DRM). Content protection systems such as, for example, DVB CPCM (Digital Video Broadcast Content Protection and Copy Management) have been developed to provide protection against inappropriate use of commercial content. DVB CPCM manages usage of commercial digital content delivered to consumer products and home networks from acquisition into the system until final consumption, or export from the system, in accordance with the particular usage rules associated with the commercial digital content. Examples of commercial digital content may include all types of content such as audio, video and associated applications and data any of which may be received via broadcast services, Internet-based services, packaged media, and mobile services, and the like. An exemplary content protection system such as DVB CPCM may provide specifications to facilitate interoperability of content after acquisition by networked consumer devices for both home networking and remote access. Thus, a typical content protection system may define signaling and technical compliance standards to ensure interoperability.
Given that a content protection system that is designed to provide protection for commercial content may add some implication of legitimacy to the content being presented by the system, offering content via a content protection system may be a desirable mechanism by which certain individuals may desire to offer personal content to others. However, the implication of legitimacy may be misused in some cases. For example, bootlegged movies, music and other content that has been illegally copied or acquired may undergo “content laundering” by uploading such content to a content protection system and making the content freely available via the content protection system. To prevent content laundering from making illegitimate content appear to be legitimate, many content providers are reluctant to accept any personal or user-created content into a content protection system.
Despite the issues described above, there may be legitimate reasons why personal content may benefit from being protected via a content protection system. For example, a user may wish to send photographs from a party to individuals who where at the party, but may not wish to allow those individuals to further distribute the content to their friends or post the content on the Internet. Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide an improved content protection system with respect to handling personal content.